About 20 minutes before akšam (magrib), the Moon will enter my 4th house.

In the evening I attended a zikr with the Qadiri-Rifai dervishes in Massachusetts. It had been a while since I had been there. We had a guest join us via Skype from South Africa. Other than that, it was just the host couple and me. We had a nice chat afterwards. I met them almost 2 years ago. Perhaps I will meet their shaykh this summer.

A professional associate with whom I was friends on Facebook passed away during the night. A few days ago his sister posted a message, tagging him so that people who know him would see it. He was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of a cancer a few weeks ago. By the time she posted, there were a few options left, including palliative measures with the expectation that he would pass in a few days. Intuitively, that seemed to me to be the option I would likely choose. Instead, he chose a more drastic intervention. Unfortunately, that didn't work out, so the option defaulted to palliative measures. He would have turned 39 tomorrow. R.I.P. Not one to broadcast on FB whether or not I am praying for anyone, I brought up the situation at zikr and we did 3 Fatihas for him.